18 February, 2005

Oxigen Plant in Dublin The Oxigen plant in Coolock on a bitterly cold Friday Morning. The smells from the Cadburys Chocolate Factory and Tayto Crisps are in the air down in the village, but here in the Industrial Estate off the Oscar Traynor Road there's barely a whiff coming from a pile on the floor that represents today's contents from all of Dublin's Green Bins.

€9.50 an hour for the Professors and teachers from Eastern Europe working on the sorting line. The plant can deal with 10 tonnes an hour and is operating 24/7. A new plant in West Dublin will have 5 times the capacity, once it opens later in the year. The worst contents of the green bins so far have been dead cats, and grass clippings, oh, and a back boiler that almost broke the conveyor belt.

16 February, 2005

It’s D-Day for Climate Change. Today the Kyoto Protocol comes into force. Named after an ancient city in Southern Japan, the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change is a United Nations Treaty that tackles Global Warming. In Ireland this may bring warmer drier summers and milder rainy winters. It may also have contributed to the storms to our shores last January, and contributed to flooding in our rivers in recent years.

On Grafton Street Trevor Sargent addressed the shoppers under a giant weather balloon globe that symbolised the fragility of our planet

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About Me

Born in Shankill, County Dublin, as the snow melted after the long hard winter of 1963. I trained an an architect and planner and studied at the University of Maine in the USA, University College Dublin, and the University of Venice.
I was a Green Party TD for Dún Laoghaire from 2002-2011. In the Dáil as Minister of State for Planning, I reformed our laws to put the needs of communities ahead of developers. I published laws to tackle climate change and noise pollution, and protect our heritage. I have stood up to high-rise development and corrupt rezoning. I am a keen gardener and sailor, and have two children. I am a Councillor representing Dublin's North Inner City
I lecture in urban regeneration in the School of Transport Engineering, Environment and Planning
at the Dublin Institute of Technology, Bolton Street.